Introduction

In the past few years, many new resources have been put up on the Internet
that facilitate legal research work. The sheer number and variety of
resources can sometimes make it difficult to determine when to use the
Internet, where to start, how to choose among similar resources, and
how to keep up-to-date on available resources. The present guide is
intended to explain why the Internet is useful for legal research, and
describe some of the major resources available on the Internet for
researching the law of the United States and other countries,
comparative law, and international law. It describes what
resources are generally not on the Internet and some problems with
doing legal research on the Internet. The guide also includes some
tips for the net-traveling legal researcher.

Why Use the Internet for Legal Research?

The Internet is a cheap alternative to the use of commercial databases
such as LEXIS and WESTLAW for finding primary legal materials such as
U.S. federal and state statutes, bills, cases, and administrative
regulations and decisions. Newspapers may sometimes provide full
texts of recent cases, reports, etc. at their Internet web sites, but
not in the print versions. Recent documents can be published by
involved organizations and associations (for instance, USA ENGAGE published the briefs,
memoranda, order and final judgment in the National Foreign Trade
Council's lawsuit against the State of Massachusetts' Burma
Law). Other potential Internet publishers include law firms,
lawyers, parties in a case, universities (Florida
International University published the complaint (which was
originally published by the Miami Herald at its web site) and Temple
University published the final judgment (996 F. Supp. 1239 (1997))
in Marlene Alejandre's lawsuit against the Republic of Cuba involving
the killing of Brothers to the Rescue pilots), legal publishers (CourtTV Online
published the Marlene Alejandre complaint as well),
the government agencies (for instance, the
U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division's Microsoft case
documents and U.S. Trade Representative reports), companies, interested individuals, etc.
Sometimes these materials are available more quickly on the Internet
than on LEXIS and WESTLAW (especially if they relate to the Law of
Cyberspace/The Internet, Computer Law, Immigration Law, the First Amendment and censorship,
Communications Law,Intellectual Property, major criminal trials,
Antitrust Law, elections, or other hot topics). And sometimes, the
Internet is the only place where you will find some primary materials,
for instance, lower court/trial level decisions (U.S. District Court
decisions not yet published or that will never be published in the
Federal Supplement, for instance), complaints and
briefs, governments reports and hearings, legislation and case law from foreign countries,
treaties involving non-U.S. countries, e-mail addresses and other directory information for legal professionals worldwide, and materials in areas of law
that have been traditionally underrepresented in print and electronic
legal publications (women and the law, human rights (including related
case briefs and memoranda), the rights of
lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people, law and
literature (for instance, e-texts of Jane Austen's writings), Roman law, law and popular culture, etc.), and non-legal materials that are
important to law work or interdisciplinary research.

However, not everything is available on the Internet (see Internet Reality
Check). That "everything is on the Internet" is largely a myth
(however, I maintain that it is possible to get everything you
want
using the Internet, but
there is no guarantee - if a document you are looking for is not at a
web, gopher, or ftp site, you can always post requests for help on
listservs, but subscribers to the electronic discussion groups
do not have to provide you with a copy of the document). Mostly recent documents
from that past 5 years or so are on the Internet and sometimes really
old documents, but the vast number of materials published in between
are not on the Internet or available spottily, at best. For example,
you can find the full texts of debates for the 1st-8th
Congresses (1774-1805) and the Congressional
Record from the 101st Congress (1989-1990) to the present.
Notable exceptions include the FindLaw repository of the full texts of
U.S. Supreme
Court Opinions from 1893 (v.150 U.S.) to date and Yale Law
School's Avalon
Project which includes pre-18th century to 20th century documents
on law, history, and diplomacy.

You won't find many full runs of law journals on the Internet. If you
do find full texts, they will only be for a few years. You will
mostly find tables of contents and/or indexes of law journals. No one
wants to lose pay subscriptions by putting full texts on the Internet
for free. You will not find many books on the Internet (perhaps some
electronic casebooks) - don't expect to (an exception is the Annotated
Constitution which is 2444 pages in print). No real encyclopedic
treatments of areas of law either (see exception with the Encyclopedia of Law and
Economics). Note that Internet resources can be transitory - that
wonderful web site or document you found today, might not be there the
next day.

Where to Start Your Internet Legal Research

Before you start using the Internet for legal research, determine if
the information you are looking for is available in hardcopy in your
library, or in electronic format on LEXIS, WESTLAW, CD-ROM, or some
other database. Note that it is possible to do more complex searches
via LEXIS, WESTLAW, and other subscription database than using some of
the free Internet resources. And keep in mind that, sometimes, it is more
efficient to find a hornbook or treatise on your topic or a good journal
article before turning to the Internet. It might be less costly in
terms of time, results, etc., NOT to use the Internet. It depends on
what you are researching. If it has to do with standard torts,
contracts, corporations, securities, antitrust topics and you need
background information, you'll get at useful information faster OFF the
Internet.

If you decide to use the Internet, be prepared! This means making
sure that you have the Adobe Acrobat
Reader to be able to download and read files in PDF format
(usually government documents; reasonable facsimile of what the
document will look like in print/hardcopy/paper). Set up your browser
so that it will automatically download the file and call it up/launch
the Adobe Acrobat Reader as a helper application. Set up your printer
so that materials you printout include the URL, date and time of
download of the document (information needed for citation
purposes). "Bookmark" or add to your "Favorites" any
useful site you find so you can easily get to them later (or better
yet, if possible, add them to your personal web page). Make sure you have updated anti-virus
software (so you can download Microsoft Word and WordPerfect files
without fear). Know some shortcuts - for .com addresses, you don't
need to type out the entire URL (disney will do in lieu of
http://www.disney.com/ or findlaw
instead of http://www.findlaw.com/). U.S. government agency addresses are usually
http://www.[agency acronym/abbreviation].gov/ (so http://www.fcc.gov/, http://www.irs.gov/, http://www.uspto.gov/ - but there are exceptions such as
http://www.state.gov/ (U.S. Department of State)). Remember: .com
(commercial), .gov (government), .org (organization), .edu (education). And sometimes mistaken
guesses can lead you astray (compare http://www.whitehouse.com/ and
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ -
warning - the .com site has adult material). And you generally can
leave off the "http" - that's the default. Note that not every resource on the Internet is free.
For fee-based resources, be prepared to evaluate them against their
free counterparts or non-Internet alternatives and to arrange
payment. And know where you are going to start.

Prior to using the Internet for legal research, you should be aware of
the Bluebook rules for citation of Internet resources. The
Sixteenth Edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of
Citation states as follows in Rule 17.3.3 (page 124):

Because of the transient nature of many Internet sources,
citation to Internet sources is discouraged unless the materials
are unavailable in printed form or are difficult to obtain in
their original form. When citing to materials found on the
Internet, provide the name of the author (if any), the title or
top-level heading of the material being cited, and the
Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The Uniform Resource Locator is
the electronic address of the information and should be given in
angled brackets. For electronic journals and publications, the
actual date of publication should be given. Otherwise, provide
the most recent modification date of the source preceded by the
term "last modified" or the date of access preceded by the term
"visited" if the modification date is unavailable:

Citations to journals that appear only on the Internet should
include the volume number, the title of the journal, and the
sequential article number. Pinpoint citations should refer
to the paragraph number, if available:

It's good to begin searching on the Internet at a site with which you
are familiar. This could be your firm's intranet, the University of Chicago
Law School D'Angelo Law Library page or, one of my favorite legal
research "portals"/gateways, FindLaw. There are also lists of
"Best of the Legal Web" pages:

To determine the quality of information you find on the Internet
(what's a good site), consider some of the following: objectivity,
expediency, timeliness, accuracy, authenticity, scope. Is the site
free or fee-based? If it costs, any guarantees of quality control?
Who is the author/publisher - government agency, university,
organization, company, law firm, a good-hearted individual? What is
the source of the data - who provided it and in what format? Was the
original pagination of paper version retained? Is there an electronic
signature to confirm authorship? What is the date of the web
site/document? When last modified/updated? Is the document full
text, index or abstracts? Is it complete or excerpted? Is the
content of the electronic version as accurate as the print? Are there
archives? How long is data retained at the web site? Broken links?
Ease of navigation? Search mechanisms? How easy is the web site to
access? Slow connections? Is information there stable? Is there a
contact person? Are broken links quickly fixed? If you have a choice of
publishers for a document, choose the originator of the document (
government agency, international organization, etc.). Use documents
where it is possible to verify date, authorship, other indicia of
authencity.

If you are unfamiliar with doing research on the Internet, it is good
to hunt down a legal research guide. The guides below are good to check before
embarking on legal research on the Internet. They describe and link to legal
resources generally available on the Internet such as web, gopher, ftp
sites, and listservs, or list existing Internet legal research guides.

Jim Milles

"Law on the Web"
(this is one of the best places to start as it is a well-organized list of
U.S. legal resources on the Internet - statutes, cases, etc., with links)

Argus Clearinghouse (was called "Clearinghouse for Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides"; includes research guides on all sorts of topics, including
law, many with hypertext links; most useful for non-legal research)

Or you can browse through some of the major Internet sites for law.
If you become familiar with the sites below, you can do research on
the Internet for legal questions more effectively. These web sites
normally arrange information by legal subject (Antitrust Law, Civil
Rights, Immigration Law, etc.), by type of document (Constitutions,
Court Cases, Statutes, Treaties, etc.), by source (Governmental
agency, International Organization, Law Firm, Law School, Publisher),
and/or by intended audience (Law Students, Law Librarians, etc.).
Note that, for U.S. government documents, try THOMAS or GPO Access.

U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library (one of the most
comprehensive sites for law-related information on the Net there is!)

Or you can do a keyword search through World Wide Web and other
Internet sites by using one of the many Internet indexes. Some of my
favorite search engines are below (note that they are extremely useful
when looking for non-law information also):

Or you can browse or do a word search through the several public
listserv and e-journal archives that exist to find answers to your
question or to see if your topic has been discussed before:

LegalMinds (archives
hundreds of law-related electronic discussion groups, and also
provides a free service from FindLaw for starting your own discussion
group/mailing list at eGroups.com/ - there's also Listbot and Onelist)

Or you can ask for help in finding useful Internet resources by
posting a message to one of the many law-related lists that exist.
You can identify a relevant list by searching "Lyo's Law Lists" at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/law-lists.

SCOUT-REPORT
(Announcements of new Internet resources; there is also the Scout
Report of the Social Sciences, Business and Economics, and Science and
Engineering)
Send the following message to LISTSERV@CS.WISC.EDU
subscribe scout-report Your Name

Another current awareness tool is the Law Library Resource Xchange at
http://www.llrx.com/ which includes
news stories and links and information about Internet resources for
legal professionals.

Tips for the Net-Traveling Researcher

1. Always consult local resources first. This could be your institution's
own Internet resources (web, gopher, etc.), librarian, catalog, expert in the
area you're researching, etc. Resources in your city, your state, etc.
Finding answers in resources nearby can save you time and money. It can be
more efficient than Internet research - as sometimes what you are looking for
might not be available on or from Internet resources. This tip is
particularly valuable when using Internet listservs - you do not want to post
to a list a request for information without asking people locally first if
they have the information - it might make your institution or your colleagues
look bad or look like they are not up to snuff. And there might
actually be a resource locally that could help.

2. Try to develop an approach to research using the Internet. Become
familiar with a few sites and search engines - it is always good to know what
web site you'd like to begin your search with, and if that site doesn't hold
an answer to your question, what search engine to use to find relevant sites.
And if you don't know how to approach getting an answer to your
research question, ask your librarian for help.

3. Never rely totally on Internet resources. They are useful complements to
print and electronic resources, and can sometimes be the only place to find a
needed document, but the Internet does not have all needed law resources.
There are still some gaps in what is available on the Internet for legal
research, and there may continue to be gaps. Have alternative plans for
finding the information you need, just in case - especially if you are in
urgent need of the information.

Other Guides to Legal Research Using the Internet

The following web pages contain useful information on researching the
law using Internet resources:

Factbooks About...
the American Legal System (American Bar Association Division for
Media Relations and Public Affairs; includes factbooks in PDF format
on the American Judicial System, Women and the Law, Law and the Elderly,
Children and the Law, and the American Criminal Justice System)

Conclusion

It is possible to be overwhelmed by the myriad of resources available on the
Internet (and in print and electronic formats generally). It is amazing how
much law-related information is published! A good approach is to have a
research plan, and if you're uncertain where to begin, ask your librarian, a
colleague or someone else who might be familiar with your legal research topic.
And remember that sometimes the fun stuff on the Internet is not only useful
for taking a break in work, but also can help you become more efficient and
familiar and comfortable with using resources on the Internet for
legal research. So explore anything you're interested in. And have fun!

Bon voyage!
Lyo

Lyonette Louis-Jacques
Foreign and International Law
Librarian and Lecturer in Law
D'Angelo Law Library
University of Chicago Law School
1121 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637 U.S.A.
E-mail: llou@midway.uchicago.edu
Phone: 1-773-702-9612
Fax: 1-773-702-2889